While we whine about being offended or deprived of anything in this country (“war on women,” anyone?) and fixate on frivolities, think of what Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan has endured. The Taliban voted to murder her when she was 17 simply because she thought women should be educated. She survived the assassination attempt and became the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2014. One of my favorite companies, Julep, provides healthy, high quality cosmetics and also gives some proceeds to the Malala Fund. They created a nail polish named after her, inspired by the color of the shawl Malala wore at her U.N. speech – a shawl that once belonged to Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007.
I’m always concerned about the path my money ends up traveling, and from the research I’ve done thus far, Malala’s Fund is legitimately focused on helping women become educated, not using education as a guise to fund sexual experimentation like some women’s international organizations, so that’s all the more reason to purchase from Julep.